Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Brown shifts Katrina blame onto others


Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown defends his response to Hurricane Katrina on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Michelle Mittelstadt Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Ousted FEMA Director Michael Brown offered an aggressive defense Tuesday of the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina, blaming a “dysfunctional” Louisiana leadership for infighting and hesitant decision-making that spiraled the relief operation into chaos.

“It’s my belief that FEMA did a good job in the Gulf States,” he told a special House committee investigating the Katrina response – an assessment lawmakers from both political parties sharply disputed.

Beyond laying much of the blame for the error-plagued initial response at the feet of Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, both Democrats, Brown also faulted Bush administration budget cuts that he said led to the “emaciation” of the agency.

During an often-contentious appearance stretching more than six hours, Brown acknowledged several missteps.

“My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday (two days before Katrina hit) that Louisiana was dysfunctional,” said the Republican appointee, who resigned earlier this month after being removed as on-scene federal disaster manager in a highly visible rebuke by his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

He also faulted himself for not holding regular media briefings and for not refereeing tensions between the governor and mayor. “I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn’t pull it off,” he said.

But Brown largely shifted blame onto others, saying smoother Katrina operations in Mississippi and Alabama offered proof that FEMA was capable of effective rescue-and-relief. That response drew the wrath of Rep. Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat who has complained bitterly of FEMA incompetence since Katrina savaged his district.

“You can try to throw as much as you can on the backs of Louisianans, but I’m a witness as to what happened in Mississippi,” said Taylor, whose house was destroyed by the storm. “You folks fell on your face. You get an F-minus in my book.”

Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., was equally critical. “I’m happy you left,” he said. “Because that kind of look in the light like a deer tells me that you weren’t capable to do the job.”

Blanco and the mayor’s office rejected the assertion that rivalry led to a belated mandatory order to evacuate New Orleans, both noting that at least 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants had cleared the area by the time Katrina struck.

“Such falsehoods and misleading statements, made under oath before Congress, are shocking,” the governor said. “It clearly demonstrates the appalling degree to which Brown is either out of touch with the truth or reality.”

Brown testified that he was so concerned by local officials’ failure to order a mandatory evacuation that he phoned and e-mailed President Bush, White House chief of staff Andrew Card and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin.

“I told them we needed help,” he said.

While conceding Brown’s point that a mandatory evacuation wasn’t issued until the day before Katrina made landfall, Nagin spokeswoman Sally Forman noted that officials had called a day earlier for a voluntary evacuation. “It was as successful a plan as we ever had,” she said.

That view wasn’t shared by Brown, who said the failure to evacuate thousands of New Orleans residents “was the tipping point for all the other things that either went wrong or were exacerbated.”

In a testy exchange with Shays, Brown denied that his agency should have stepped in if he viewed the evacuation plan as inadequate. “I guess you want me to be this superhero that is going to step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans,” he said.

“No, what I wanted you to do was do your job,” Shays retorted.

The former FEMA director, who has become the public face of a sluggish response blamed for some of the more than 1,000 Katrina deaths, rejected criticism that he lacked emergency management experience. He bristled at news articles reporting that his experience before joining FEMA in 2001 included working for a horse association.

“I know what I’m doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it,” he said, noting that he had presided over more than 150 disasters during his FEMA tenure. He acknowledged Tuesday that he remains on the Homeland Security payroll as a temporary consultant in the review of the Katrina response.

Brown depicted himself as a staunch defender of a FEMA bureaucracy whose budget was repeatedly raided after it was rolled into the new Homeland Security Department. He complained that he interceded unsuccessfully with Homeland Security leaders to fight nearly $80 million in cuts.

“I can go to bed at night and sleep because I know I fought that battle,” he said.

The belt-tightening, he said, forced FEMA to defer buying more communications equipment that could have been used during the Katrina disaster, which decimated phone and power lines.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, said Brown could have turned to Congress to restore funding that lawmakers weren’t aware had been cut. “I don’t know how you can sleep at night,” she said. “You lost the battle.”

In a rare conciliatory moment, Brown replied: “I probably should have just resigned my post earlier and gone public with some of these things, because I have a great admiration for the men and women of FEMA and what they do, and they don’t deserve what they’ve been getting.”

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke denied that FEMA’s budget or personnel had been scaled back, though he noted that FEMA – like the 21 other agencies that joined Homeland Security initially – contributed funds to establish the department headquarters.

The select committee’s chairman, Virginia Republican Tom Davis, pledged to obtain the internal paperwork reflecting the department’s spending and priorities.

House Democrats continued to largely ignore the Katrina committee, which they contend will not produce an even-handed review of a Republican administration’s missteps. They are demanding an independent investigation.